ARC A 770 VS RTX 4060: Mainstream GPU Battle

Intel ARC A 770 16GB is the flagship graphics card from the ARC Alchemist GPU family, while the RTX 4060 8GB is the 6th GPU in terms of performance ranking from Nvidia’s 4000 series after RTX 4090, 4080, 4070 Ti, 4070, 4060 Ti. Now, we have some super variant cards in the Nvidia 4000 series, which makes the RTX 4060’s position even lower on Nvidia’s performance chart. However, ARC A 770 and RTX 4060 are aimed at mainstream users, and both are available in the ~$300 range, which makes us interested in writing this article. Recently we published an article where ARC A750 VS AMD RX 6600 fighting each other to become the best $200 GPU.

Intel Arc A 770 is available in 16GB and 8GB models, but RTX 4060 is only an 8GB Graphics card. The 8GB Arc A 770 is slightly cheaper, but we took the 16GB model for a fair comparison with the RTX 4060 due to price equality. A short overview of these cards before the benchmark result. 

Intel ARC A 770 16GB Specifications & Overview

Only two players ruled the dedicated GPU market over two decades – the mighty Nvidia and their worthy competitor AMD. But tech giant Intel finally joined the competition with their long-waited Alchemist graphics family, and we have seen some serious competition in the mainstream GPU industry after a long time. Intel took the same approach as AMD had taken with their Polaris architecture, targeting mainstream users instead of the high-end market segments. Interestingly, former AMD graphics head Raja Kuduri led the Intel ARC GPU department and was also in charge of AMD’s GPU division when Polaris was released.  

Arc Alchemist is the first generation of Intel’s dedicated GPU, so we have nothing to compare except their integrated graphics! The flagship Arc A 770 packs 4096 shading units, 256 TMUs, 128 ROPs, 32 RT cores,16MB L2 cache, and 512 tensor cores. Intel limited edition card clocked at 2000 MHz with a 2400MHz boost clock and discontinued ahead of Battlemage lunch. Aftermarket cards provide a better cooling solution with a 100-200 Mhz higher clock speed.

The Arc A 770 is superior from the hardware perspective. But Nvidia has been making Graphics cards for many years and has better driver optimization. As a first-generation card, Arc A 770 has some weird issues. It consumes around 40-46 idle power on the motherboard that doesn’t support the native ASPM subset. Though Intel fixed this issue with a firmware update and posted a solution, it doesn’t work on a high refresh rate gaming monitor/multi-monitor nor works when VVR/HDR is enabled.

Unfortunately, ARC A 770 still doesn’t have 10-bit SDR support. You can’t take full advantage of your monitor’s color grading with Arc graphics cards on a 10-bit SDR monitor. Intel’s graphics support team addressed this issue and confirmed that they are working to solve the 10-bit SDR fix in future driver updates. However, some tweaks can enable 10bit SDR color over HDMI port on selected ARC models. The ARC A 770 requires Resizable bar support to show its full strength- a feature available on 10th gen and later processors, so it is not an ideal GPU for upgrades for existing platforms released before 2020. Modders reveal a way to unlock Resizable Bar support for older systems, but these hacks need some technical knowledge and won’t work smoothly on some motherboards. 

DirectX 9 games performed terribly on all Arc cards when it was released. Thankfully, Intel changed the DX9 implementation at the driver level and continues optimizations for older DX9 games through driver updates. Intel took this issue seriously and released the highest number of driver updates compared to the other two GPU manufacturers last year. Now, ARC users get excited with every driver update as Intel extracts more gaming performance from their cards. We will discuss the performance at the end after comparing the RTX 4060.

RTX 4060 8GB Specifications & Overview

The RTX 4060 is the 3rd iteration of Nvidia’s Ray Tracing graphics card aimed at the mainstream 1080P market segment, the successor of the old RTX 3060. The RTX 4060 uses the smaller TSMC’s 5 nm fabrication node compared to the 6nm node used on the Intel Arc A 770. We have seen that Nvidia uses only half of the X16 PCI-E 4.0 lanes in RTX 4060, which theoretically provides the same bandwidth as a 16-lane PCI-E 3.0 bandwidth of RTX 3060.

Nvidia’s mainstream 1080P champion RTX 4060 packed 3072 Shading Units, 96 TMUs, 48 ROPs, 96 Tensor Cores, 24 RT Cores, and 24MB of L2 cache. An RTX 3060 with 12GB memory config also hit the market at a slightly lower price after the 4060 launch.

Nvidia probably had many RTX 3060s in their stock, and updating the RTX 3060 memory size was relatively easy as it had a 192-bit memory bus. We probably won’t see an RTX 4060 with a higher memory configuration than 8GB unless Nvidia entirely redesigns the 4060’s memory system design.

However, as Nvidia restructured its DLSS and RT technology exclusively for the RTX 4000 series, the RTX 3060 might not perform as expected in future games, even though it has 12GB of memory. 

How long does an 8GB graphics card provide a smooth frame rate for 1080P gaming became a burning question since the developers already stated future games require more than 8GB of VRAM at 1080P high settings. Many AAA games like Last of Us: Part 1 allocated more than 8GB of VRAM at 1080P ultra settings. About future-proofing, an 8GB VRAM will not be enough for 1080P ultra settings in upcoming titles. Even the RTX 4060 leads the current gaming chart at 1080P ultra settings, but we will need to reduce the graphical settings to get a decent frame rate soon. Intel Arc A 770 has higher memory size advantages with better hardware specifications against Nvidia’s super polished driver optimization for games and 3D applications.

RTX 4060 VS ARC A 770: Synthetics Benchmark 

Test system: CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix B650E-F Gaming WiFi, RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo 32GB (2x16GB), SSD: SAMSUNG 990 PRO Cooler: Thermalright Frozen Notte 360

Synthetic benchmarks are good indicators to measure a card’s raw computing power. We started the test with the Geekbench 6 OpenCL test. Here Nvidia RTX 4060 takes the lead, scoring a 109K mark against the 107K result on the Intel side.

But ARC A 770 turns the tide in the 3dmark wildlife time spy test, resulting in a massive 13890 against RTX 4060’s 10590.

The next benchmark is the Passmark 3D graphics test, where RTX 4060 maintains its supremacy with 20443 scores, while Intel Arc A770 is only able to manage 14654. The Passmark 3D Graphics performance difference between the two GPUs was even higher a few months ago, but the latest ARC driver update helps the Arc A 770 narrow the performance gap in Passmark. 

But, the scenario changes in MSI Kombustor, ARC A 770 outperforms RTX 4060 by a big margin. 

At the Unigine Heaven test, RTX 4060 wins, but the performance difference is very close.     

RTX 4060 VS ARC A 770: Gaming Benchmark

We have turned off all types of upscaling methods and ray tracing in our gaming test to measure the GPU’s raw hardware power. The zombie apocalypse game Dying Light 2: Stay Human is a visually marvelous first-person game with a large open-world map. With the latest driver 31.0.101.5330, ARC A 770 beats the RTX 4060 at both 1080P and 1440P resolution.   

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is a Nvidia-sponsored title, Cyberpunk became Nvidia’s tech demo showdown. The RTX 4060 takes a minor lead at 1080P while the A770 provides a better 1% low, but the Arc A 770 wins at 1440P resolution. Here 8GB VRAM shortage hurts the Nvidia RTX 4060 performance. We have turns of upscaling and RT settings to measure the card’s raw performance. With upscaling and ray tracing, RTX 4060 performs slightly better at 1080P but loses at 1440P due to VRAM limitation. 

Arc A 770 performs terribly in Rainbow Six at the beginning. But Arc’s team took this title seriously and continued driver optimization for Rainbow Six. We can see that RTX 4060 wins at 1080P, but loses to ARC A 770 at 1440P.

Starfield remains a nightmare for ARC A 770, it was completely broken at lunch. We have seen a slight improvement in the latest driver, but nowhere near RTX 4060.  

The next title is Resident Evil 4 – a popular survival horror game. Here, ARC A 770 beats RTX 4060 at both 1080P and 1440P resolution.

RTX 4060 VS ARC A 770: Productivity Benchmark 

ARC A 770 and RTX 4060, both cards have native AV1 support. But ARC A 770 utilizes its hardware power and beats RTX 4060 heavily in the Adobe Premiere Pro H264 encoding test. Arc A 770’s larger 16GB VRAM becomes handy this time. 

We see the same result in the After Effects GPU score. While Arc A 770 was able to score 97 while the RTX 4060 struggled with a 68 mark. 

But 3D software like Blender and Unreal engine utilizes Nvidia’s CUDA cores heavily. Here, RTX 4060 is undoubtedly a clear winner. Intel ARC team pushes driver optimization for these 3D software, but Nvidia remains miles away from them. 

Conclusion: 

After reviewing the synthetic benchmarks and gaming charts, there is no clear winner between ARC A 770 and RTX 4060. While RTX 4060 pushes a higher score in GeekBench 6, Passmark, and Unigine Heaven, the ARC A 770 keeps the performance crown in MSI Kombustor and 3DMark Time Spy.  

We have mixed results in gaming when comparing the ARC A 770 VS RTX 4060. The RTX 4060 performs much better in older titles based on DX9/DX11 API, while Intel performs smoothly in modern DX12-based games. ARC A 770 takes the lead in visually demanding games due to higher memory bandwidth and larger memory size.  The ARC A 770 runs smoothly due to the 16GB VRAM at 1440P resolution, while the RTX 4060 suffers from the VRAM. There is a rumor that Microsoft will use an Intel chip in their upcoming console. In that case, future games will run better on Intel GPU. 

If you’re a video editor or motion graphics designer, Arc A 770 will be a better choice. On the other hand, RTX 4060 has a CUDA core advantage and is better for Blender and Unreal Engine users.

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